Marisacat

Satire… 10 February 2010

US President Barack Obama has found his way onto a number of floats that will parade through the streets of Cologne on Rose Monday. Here, Germany expresses its love of the new American leader. Obama has the Nobel Peace Prize under his arm and his briefcase alludes to his efforts at arms reduction. And what is Lady Liberty doing? Lighting a fire under his ass, apparently. [Spiegel – photo gallery – article]

yeah.. that is lady liberty lighting a fire under his ass… in graphic fashion.

:lol: It won’t be working! News Flash!

(just about to send this to “publish” and realise they should have hung a few Hawai’ian leis off his rump! .. or his neck!)

“We haven’t seen anything like this before: a really deep recession combined with a really extended period, maybe as much as eight years, all told, of highly elevated unemployment,” Shierholz told me. “We’re about to see a big national experiment on stress.”

This is what worries me the most — we Americans don’t do well under our own artificailly induced stress, I cannot imagine what kind of insane shit is going to happen when more and more of us start facing ACTUAL stress (re, bills, housing, health care, etc. etc.)– ‘specially those who’ve never done it before…

Religious right leaders are making a concerted push to gain thousands of new signatures for their “Manhattan Declaration,” a manifesto released late last year by about 150 conservative Christian leaders. The document, signed by such religious-right heavy-hitters as Focus on the Family eminence James Dobson and Prison Fellowship Ministries leader Chuck Colson, compares pro-choice advocates to eugenicists (and implicitly to Nazis) and equates same-sex marriage with polygamy and a gateway to legalized incest. Its authors promise to defy any law that does not comport with their religious beliefs. Joining the religious right’s Protestant leaders as signatories to the declaration are four Roman Catholic bishops, including those presiding over the powerful archdioceses of New York and Washington, DC.

Described by New York Times religion reporter Laurie Goodstein as “an effort to rejuvenate the political alliance of conservative Catholics and evangelicals that dominated the religious debate during the administration of President George W. Bush,” declaration authors initially set a target for a million signatures by December 1. Although they fell well short of that goal, they claimed at press time to have gathered more than 419,000 signatures and have redoubled their efforts to add more names.

The American Family Association made the Manhattan Declaration the centerpiece of a January fundraising letter, urging members to sign the document, warning of the grave threat from “the anti-family/anti-religious radicals who control the White House and Congress.” Focus on the Family posted a note on its “Action Center” on January 14. And several U.S. Catholic bishops — Cardinal Justin Rigali of Philadelphia, Archbishop Donald Wuerl of Washington, D.C., Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York, and Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz of Louisville — are urging their fellow bishops to preach about the declaration, get signatures from the faithful and use the document as an organizing vehicle.

Fucking hell. Somehow that strikes me as utterly the opposite of standard bullshit frorm the Right.

ugh:

And several U.S. Catholic bishops — Cardinal Justin Rigali of Philadelphia, Archbishop Donald Wuerl of Washington, D.C., Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York, and Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz of Louisville — are urging their fellow bishops to preach about the declaration, get signatures from the faithful and use the document as an organizing vehicle.

Wuerl is at the absolute heart of power in this lousy country. Dolan too………

But it also reflects a potentially more troubling hardening of right-wing resistance to legal abortion and to cultural shifts that signal a nation increasingly supportive of equality for LGBT people. In a diverse and increasingly pluralistic nation, these conservative Christian leaders are inflaming false fears of religious persecution in order to justify their own intransigence and unwillingness to abide by legal, political and cultural changes they don’t like.

If, as these and other conservative Christians have declared, their positions on abortion and end-of-life issues and marriage are “inviolable and non-negotiable,” where does that lead? Clearly, it may lead to the Archdiocese of Washington decreeing that its supposed need not to provide health care benefits to the partner of a gay employee is more important than its multi-million-dollar partnerships with the District of Columbia government to provide services to the homeless and hungry.

And it could lead to worse. The editors of the Los Angeles Times called the Manhattan Declaration’s “apocalyptic argument for lawbreaking” both disingenuous and dangerous, and asked, “Did the Roman Catholic bishops who signed the manifesto consider how their endorsement of lawbreaking in a higher cause might embolden the antiabortion terrorists they claim to condemn?”

The signers, concludes the editorial, “need to be reminded that this is a nation of laws, not of men — even holy men.”

“[H]ow is it possible, at this late date, for Obama to be this clueless?” Paul Krugman, liberal economist and Nobel Laureate, wrote on his New York Times blog.

Dimon is seen as one of the Wall Street executives who enjoys the closest relationship with the president, along with Robert Wolf, head of the American division of Swiss bank UBS. A longtime Democratic donor, Dimon first met Obama in Chicago, where Dimon lived and worked from the late 1990s until 2007.

And both Dimon and Blankfein have met with the president several times. In their most recent meeting, Obama invited Dimon to Washington for lunch right before the State of the Union, according to a source familiar with the meeting. ….

And this.. Groehl has been on Moyers.. and I liked him, willing to name names of Dems screwing over the people (in particular Melissa Bean, who iirc was a beloved of the Orangeland set):

[B]ut the comments have raised questions for some. “It’s as if his heart isn’t in it, like he’s chomping down some broccoli or his least favorite vegetable at the end of the dinner,” said George Goehl, executive director of National People’s Action, a Chicago-based group that helped organize a massive protest of the American Bankers Association’s annual convention last October.

And the perception that Obama’s backing off the banks, if it persists, won’t help congressional Democrats in their effort to label Republicans as too-cozy with Wall Street.

The National Republican Congressional Committee has seen many of its candidates slammed in ads for opposing the financial reform bill that passed the House in December. So NRCC jumped on Obama’s comments to Bloomberg Wednesday, blasting out an e-mail titled “Obama Suddenly Scales Back Anti-Wall Street Rhetoric.” …

OF COURSE the report mentions that Ob’s words make it hard for Dems running in November to say the R are cosying up with Wall St.

How many friends does he have left, I wonder???? In a congress he barely served in. Geesh.

Neither Dimon nor Blankfein contributed directly to Obama’s presidential campaign, but their banks did – as did their entire industry. The securities and investment sector gave $14.8 million to Obama, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Goldman Sachs was the largest giver of them all, with its employees and PAC giving a combined $994,795, while JP Morgan donated $543,219.

Financial firms weren’t as generous to Republican John McCain. The securities and investment industry gave McCain’s presidential campaign a total of $8.7 million during the 2008 election cycle. Goldman donated $230,000; JP Morgan gave $228,000.

But relations between most Democrats and Wall Street donors aren’t as warm this cycle as the financial industry chafes against the harsh rhetoric and policy prescriptions lawmakers have aimed at them. [No, the Firms got what they paid for, time for them to move on to the next crew up at bat! – Mcat]

Dimon has personally donated nothing so far this cycle. And while JP Morgan’s PAC has donated to some Democratic candidates, it passed over national Democratic House and Senate organizations while giving $30,000 to Republican groups.

Blankfein has personally given to only two candidates, both Democrats, while Goldman’s giving continues to tilt heavily Democratic this cycle, according to Center for Responsive Politics data

I feel pretty sure no one in the House or Senate is surprised. Why would they be? NOR do I believe there is any plan to actually work overturning DADT (much less DOMA) thru the congress.

[B]ut House Democratic leadership aides tell POLITICO they are growing increasingly worried over the lack of a detailed White House road map for passing a repeal — and that without such a road map, repeal will end up in the same kind of Senate gridlock that hobbled health reform.

And hopes that Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) would galvanize moderates in both parties to the cause by introducing the repeal bill have yet to materialize despite months of negotiations between Lieberman and the White House, according to people familiar with the situation.

“Not only did Obama toss [‘don’t ask, don’t tell’] to a Congress that’s preoccupied with the economy and the midterms — he tossed it to perhaps the most dysfunctional Congress in the history of the country,” said a senior aide to a Senate Democrat who has been pushing for repeal. …

So.

Former University of Cincinnati police officer Ray Tensing has been released on a $1 million bail after pleading not guilty to the murder of Sam DuBose. Tensing, who is white, fatally shot the 43-year-old African-American man on July 19 after stopping him for not having a front license plate. Two additional officers, Phillip Kidd and David Lindenschmidt, hav […]

As the Senate prepares to vote to defund Planned Parenthood, we look at the Center for Medical Progress, the anti-choice group behind the attacks on Planned Parenthood. The group was founded by David Daleiden who is seen in the undercover sting videos using a fictional name. We speak to RH Reality Check's Sharona Coutts, who wrote the piece, "Exclu […]

The Senate is planning to vote as soon as Monday to strip Planned Parenthood of $500 million in federal funding. The vote comes as Planned Parenthood is coming under fire from anti-choice activists after the release of a series of undercover sting videos were published online. The heavily edited videos suggest the organization profits from supplying aborted […]

In Portland, Oregon, law enforcement officers have removed Greenpeace activists who spent 40 hours suspended from the St. Johns Bridge in order to block an icebreaking ship commissioned by oil giant Shell from leaving for the Arctic. Hundreds of activists have been gathering on the bridge and in kayaks since Tuesday night in efforts to stop Shell's plan […]

On Reality Asserts Itself, Mr. Drake, a former Senior Executive at the National Security Agency, says he was targeted by the NSA because he exposed that the agency had intel that could have prevented the 9/11 attacks and because he blew the whistle on a massive secret surveillance program aimed at Americans

James K. Gailbraith says, IMF is demanding a substantial reduction of the Greek debt to participate in any new deal and meanwhile German law makers are refusing to approve a new bail-out without the IMF

James K. Galbraith a member of the working group advising the former finance minister Varoufakis on 'Plan B' says there were great impositions imposed on the Greek government including certain procedures that removed control from the government and placed them in the hands of creditor institutions

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House said it will launch the first ever rule on Monday to cut carbon emissions from power plants, a plan that opponents in the coal industry and their political allies will fight in the courts.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Donald Trump, the man to beat in this week's first televised Republican presidential debate, said on Sunday he does not plan to attack his rivals and downplayed expectations for his performance, saying "I'm not a debater."

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. backers of the Iran nuclear deal are increasingly confident of enough Democratic support to ensure it survives review by Congress, despite fierce opposition by majority Republicans and a massive lobbying drive.

Media

from Howl

I'm with you in Rockland
where we wake up electrified out of the coma
by our own souls' airplanes roaring over the
roof they've come to drop angelic bombs the
hospital illuminates itself imaginary walls collapse
O skinny legions run outside O starry
spangled shock of mercy the eternal war is
here O victory forget your underwear we're free
I'm with you in Rockland
in my dreams you walk dripping from a sea-
journey on the highway across America in tears
to the door of my cottage in the Western night

October 7 1955

"a remarkable collection of angelson one stage reading their poetry"
"I think Allen Ginsberg standing up there reading - putting himself on the line - was one of the two bravest things I've ever seen. Remember, it was '55. People had crew cuts, and they looked at you like you were misplaced cannon fodder. The country was being run by Luce publications. It was a dangerous, cold, ugly time, and it was scary. . .
In all our memories no one had been so outspoken in poetry before. We had gone beyond a point of no return. None of us wanted to go back to the grey, chill, militaristic silence, to the intellectual void - to the land without poetry - to the spiritual drabness. We wanted to make it new and we wanted to invent it and the process of it as we went into it. We wanted voice and we wanted vision."
-Michael McClure

Democrats…

Same as goddam fucking forever.
Over and over, in election year after election year, GE and MidTerms both… the Dems start to purr and preen, they stretch luxuriously - at just being TOLD they are going to win [...]
It never fails.
... in February of 2002, looking over the already joyless congressional stragglers willing to be drafted for duty… they barely dreamed, yet, it was even possible (Howard, a different person then, had not arrived to say it could be done)… but one thing was clear, we could not rely on the party to swing it. Could not. You could smell it, they would screw the deal. And I am not talking about Howard and primary issues here. By the end, that was a passing political story. Chuck it on the heap.
[...]
Upshot? The Republicans make it thru. They hold on.